


Song of the Magpie

by TheFandomLesbian



Series: Spencer's Criminal Minds One-Shots [14]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Betaed, Fluff, HotchReid - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:57:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28763685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFandomLesbian/pseuds/TheFandomLesbian
Summary: In a phone call, Spencer receives some bad news.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid
Series: Spencer's Criminal Minds One-Shots [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1940851
Kudos: 64





	Song of the Magpie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [s1lverwren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/s1lverwren/gifts).



> Thank you to @rosesblueviolets on Tumblr for betareading--please visit their blog to see their work and ask about editing services! 
> 
> For a HotchReid prompt requesting playing with hair.

Curled up on the leather couch on his side, Spencer faced the television, staring bleakly at the blank screen. He held his cellphone in his left hand. His arms dangled over the side of the couch. He folded his knees up toward his chest so all of his frame would fit. The living room was dark; he hadn’t turned on a light when he entered this room to take the call, a call from an unknown number from Las Vegas. 

He had worried it had something to do with his mother and stepped away from the kitchen where Aaron cooked to have a modicum of privacy. 

Warm, yellow light bathed out of the kitchen, and the smell of the dinner Aaron made met Spencer’s nose. His stomach flipped.  _ I can’t eat now. _ He swallowed hard.  _ I was hungry before. _ Was he? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember  _ before. _ Before was ten minutes ago--before was a lifetime ago.

Before his phone rang, he had intended on going camping with Aaron and Jack next weekend, entirely certain he would hate it and was looking forward to getting mosquito bitten and catching lightning bugs, something he’d never really gotten to do as a child. Now, there would be no camping. There would be no tents, no mosquito bites, and no lightning bugs. 

Just his funeral suit and a plane ticket to Las Vegas. 

Aaron left the kitchen, wiping off his hands on a dishcloth. Flour marred the front of his apron, hot pink and reading  _ Kiss the cook _ with an emblem of lips displayed underneath the sequined lettering. Spencer had given it to him. It always made him smile. But now his smile had given up the ghost. He couldn’t prompt his lips into anything more than the line they were pressed into. 

“Spencer?” Aaron put down the dishcloth and approached him. “Are you still on the phone?” 

Spencer shook his head, mutely. A concerned frown touched Aaron’s face, his brows furrowing, as he tilted his head to make eye contact with Spencer, coming between him and the black television in the dark room. 

“What’s wrong?” 

_ What’s wrong? _ Spencer knew almost every word in the English dictionary, and a metric ton of words in other languages, too, but he didn’t know how to put these feelings into words. “I--” His voice cracked.  _ Am I going to cry? _ He didn’t want to cry. “I have to go to Las Vegas.” 

Las Vegas didn’t deserve his tears. His father didn’t deserve his tears. 

Aaron waited patiently for an explanation, not pressing; Aaron never pressed, always waited for Spencer to process and reach his inevitable conclusion. Spencer closed his eyes, because he thought saying the words aloud  _ would _ make him cry. It would make it all the more real. He didn’t want it to be real. For this moment, he could pretend it had happened solely in the digital world of his cell phone, where life was immaterial and theoretical and had no true ramifications. 

But the moment passed, and Aaron deserved to know. “My father died.” 

With the tenderest of hands, Aaron lifted up Spencer by the shoulders, just enough to slide underneath him, and placed his head in his lap. One calloused hand tangled up in Spencer’s hair, stroking over Spencer’s scalp. The silence grew between them. His hands were warm.

Spencer hadn’t realized how cold he’d gotten since he answered the phone.

Aaron pulled the afghan down from the back of the couch. With his right hand, he scraped his short, bitten fingernails over Spencer’s head. The remnant flour shed from his skin. With his left hand, Aaron wrapped one of Spencer’s cold hands in his own. Restoring warmth seemed to be the first step. 

There were lots of conversations to be had. Aaron would ask a lot of questions, and Spencer would answer them. They would probably argue. They would probably take off work. Spencer would apologize for not being able to go camping, and Aaron would tell him that was a dumb thing to apologize for, and Spencer would want to do something with his parents’ house, and Aaron would recommend doing something else based on what he’d done when he’d become an inheritor himself, and Spencer would want to be alone, and Aaron wouldn’t let him, and Spencer would wonder what he did to deserve someone who loved him as much as Aaron did. 

These things would happen in due time.

But, right now, Spencer didn’t want to talk. And, right now, Aaron didn’t make him. His fingers in Spencer’s hair said everything: “ _ I’m here. _ ” That was all Spencer needed to hear. 

Spencer rolled over, buried his face into the soft of Aaron’s abdomen, and began to cry. 


End file.
